Mr Fix-It: A SHIELD Codex Short
by KhamanV
Summary: Long nights often lead to old doubts and not even the Director is immune to the ghosts of a past that never quite leaves him alone. (This one-shot takes place after the Season 2 finale and WILL spoil a certain event. Codex 10)


Mr. Fix-It: A SHIELD Codex Short

 _Phillip's on the tall staircase that leads from his bedroom down to the kitchen, where beyond a rickety old door he can hear the rustling of his father in the garage attached to the house. Music's playing from somewhere inside the forever comfortably filthy shrine to the automotive gods, but he can't hear what it is. Not yet. He's standing stone-still on the staircase, looking at his little boy's hand where it clutches the railing and he can't figure out why he's staring at it just so._

 _Under his left palm is the cool, smooth wood of the rail's surface. He can scratch at it with a ragged summertime fingernail – hygiene is yet a thing for school months, the hot months are when dirt and grass and splinters have the field – and he can feel the thin layer of old wax try to peel up underneath to prod the soft places where nail meets skin._

 _"I don't understand," he whispers. Nothing answers the question in his words, but he knows something's wrong anyway._

 _Hesitant at first, he rubs his hand down the rail ahead of him, listening to it squeak against his skin. He swears he can feel his hand tingle. At the bottom of the staircase, he lifts both his hands to squint at them. Something's wrong, and it's him. He just knows it's him. He could run, but where to? All his friends are on vacations with their family. He's home alone with Dad today and he's only about to turn nine years old._

 _Maybe he'll know. Maybe Dad can help!_

 _He takes big, leaping steps through the kitchen to bolt through the door, chased by the sound of his brown corduroy legs._

 _. . ._

 _"Hey, Sporto." Dad, looming huge against the clear blue summer sky, framed in the open rolling door at the end of the driveway. He comes over a few feet, then hunkers down halfway to get at the boy's eye level. "Phillip. What's got you so spooked?"_

 _Phillip can't say anything. Whatever's wrong with him, it's worse in here. His hands work lightly against each other and his left palm is starting to itch in all the places the nails on that hand can't reach. Deep in the meat. Itch like crazy-fire, worse than when Thad bought the itching powder in the toy store for a dime and dumped it all over his bedroom floor trying to show his friends. They tried to scoop it up to put it away again so that they wouldn't need the big, cranky Electrolux vacuum but holy crow they'd itched!_

 _Dream-memory within the dream: Two nights of ants wriggling around under the skin, Philip waking up with a cry as he saw, he swore he SAW the antennae peeking up through the folds of his knuckles. And Dad with that same look of consternation as he has now, two AM night terrors. He says the same thing now as he did then. "What's got you, Sport?" He finally told Daddy everything, including about how they gave up and used the big old metal monster to try and clean the floor and Dad had just about laughed his butt off. It was okay then._

 _"Dad?" he says now, mumbling through a mouth slowly going muddy-thick with fright. He's afraid to use his other hand to scratch the itching one, but he doesn't know why. He can feel the hand alright when he gently touches it, but the idea of doing more than that scares him. Like ghosts are watching him from the dark corners of the garage. The music's wrong, too. Instead of the quiet rock'n roll or the afternoon game on the radio or even the new President Nixon, it's something lovely and classical. He can hear the solo cello's deep, rising notes fill the room with a heavy honeyed sweetness, and somewhere in the back of his sleeping mind he knows it's a piece that's only just recently been written, played by a woman that hasn't been born yet. "Am I okay?"_

 _Dad's thick hand reaches out to drop onto the top of his head, scruffling the cheap buzz cut Phil always gets the day after school lets out for the season. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the old calluses around the thumb and finger of his dad's hand; sportsman calluses that draw the eye when he talks history instead. Swinging bats and tossing balls and trudging athletic equipment in all weather, and then the books and papers, too. Thick hands, leathery, and where are they now? Daddy, where'd you go?_

 _"Phil." Dad sighs and straightens up. "Come on over here. I'll show you something."_

 _He takes a step forward on wobbly legs after his father. The car's under the tarp. Dad's car. THE car. A 1962 Chevrolet Coupe, one owner from new and that owner was Coach Robert Coulson, who scrimped and saved and bought it fresh off the lot and does all the work himself. Nobody touches the car without supervision, not even Sporto. Cherry-red and shiny detailing, like a Coca-Cola bottle from outer space! L-O-L-A, Lola, la-la-la-la Lola! Just like the song!_

 _Phillip's eyes meet his dad's, who's grinning wide and madly. Little Phil wants to take a step back, maybe even run, because the music's slowing down. The sweet notes of the pretty cello are turning into the slow pulling rhythm of a dirge and his HAND, it's ITCHING dear god there's something wrong. He hitches in a breath, ready to start crying. Any other day, he'd put up with Dad's insistence that they work on the car together, but he's not here for Lola now. He's here because something's wrong and he can see a skull starting to tear under Daddy's face._

 _Dad yanks back the tarp and there's Lola, gleaming bright and new and oh God she's hovering. Hovering just like the old Stark reels! Phil's eyes go big as saucers and for a moment he forgets his hand, itching so bad he wants to tear it up till it bleeds. For a moment he doesn't remember that this isn't how the memory goes. "Holy jeezum, Dad!"_

 _The grin spreads. "You like it?"_

 _"It's amazing!"_

 _"Someday it's all gonna be yours, Phillip." Those big, broad hands pick up the tarp. A second later – Phil's not sure how – the oil-stained green-grey tarp is pulling itself around Robert Coulson's shoulders like a shroud. "Sooner than you think, sporto. Sooner than you think."_

 _The hitching in his chest starts again because the skull is there now, all bone and white teeth and the hollow places where a smile used to be. The cello's out of tune behind him and the car's paint is starting to crack and flake. "Daddy?" His young voice starts to crack. The adult mind sleeping behind remembers what it doesn't want to – nine to him means nine to die. He was nine years old when Robert went away._

 _He'll be nine in July, thinks the dream-boy, and June's almost over. The summer sounds beyond the garage are carrying the dirge now, crickets and electricity and that ever-present hum of the heat._

 _"Phil. You need to remember something very important." Now the easy smile turns into nothing but old, dry teeth and his voice overlaps with countless people saying the same thing. "You can't fix everything."_

 _"DADDY!" He puts up his hands to ward off what's coming and what he's becoming, and his breath gasps out of him in raw horror. His left hand, no longer itching. Now it's just hot, white fire and the skin is turning black and falling away like ash. Everything's gone with it, the car, his dad, the cello music lost in a rising, reedy scream and HIS ARM IS GONE-_

 _. . ._

Director Phil Coulson pushed himself half-upright in his bed, the sound of the sleep-scream strangling itself off in his chest to be replaced with a wince. He fell back down onto the bed, teeth baring as he realized he was trying to use _both_ arms to prop himself up. The new pain was astounding in its depth. _I can't sleep in the sling,_ he'd told medical _._ So he wound up with this instead, the still-healing ring where his arm abruptly cut off now freshly scraping its dressing against the sheets of his bed. The midnight time gleamed red against his cheek. He ignored it, looking down at what remained of his arm instead.

He swore he could still feel the hand itching sometimes. _Holy crow, like crazy-fire,_ echoed little lost Phillip in the back of his head. _They_ told him it was just phantom limb syndrome. That it'd pass in time.

But in the dream, he'd had them both. He could _feel_ everything. How was that a ghost?

He rubbed his palm against his forehead and groaned, the dull migraine of the abruptly awakened already starting to thump behind his eyes. Cold sweat wicked against the collar of his t-shirt. There would only be more ghosts if he tried to go back to sleep.

 _Screw it. I'm getting up._

 _. . ._

Mack framed himself in the top door to the garage just in time to see the Director fling a wrench into a pile of tools on top of the metal engineering cabinet with a enormous _clang._ The sound jangled against the growing whisper of rich classical music coming from the sound system inside Lola. His shoulders pinched in a wince, sipping at his mug of lukewarm coffee. His teeth grimaced at the bland, under-percolated flavor and he lowered the mug to rest it against the railing. "What did that wrench ever do to you, sir?"

Phil turned to look up at him, craning his chin back above the black strap of his sling. It contrasted against the sweaty white t-shirt and jogging pants he wore. "Refuse to do the job of loosing this one goddamn bolt I need. Can't get a good enough grip on the head." His expression told Mack it wasn't actually the wrench's problem, but damned if he was going to say so out loud. "What are you doing up?"

Mack shrugged, shoulders moving under cozy flannel and plaid. "Koenig's got me and Loki on night watch this week. _He's_ in Observation using his laptop to watch some of those _X-Files_ episodes Fitz and I recommended to try and catch up. Occasionally making this really creepy laugh when they get to the alien bits."

Phil grinned before turning back to the opened hood of Lola. "That the silent one where he just sort of heaves with all his teeth bared, or that extra freaky _eheheheheheee_ one where you're deep down pretty sure he just killed somebody?"

"The latter." Mack laughed. "He was up to Flukeman when I checked out. To be fair, I made some gross-ass noises the first time I saw that episode, too. One of my favorites. Think it's quickly becoming one of his, too. Least it seems like he's getting a kick out of the show." He rocked his mug on the metal railing, listening to that soft ceramic clink.

 _"_ Flukey _."_ Phil snorted as he wandered over to another cabinet, rummaging through it for something. "Good times." He paused, realizing Mack was still watching him. "Yeah, I don't know what I'm looking for. I think I need a screwdriver in the exact range that isn't in this drawer."

"Got more in the second bay, other side of the car. Left – my left. One of the other guys likes to move them around. Sometimes they wander down to the foundry just to piss me off." He shifted against the railing, making it creak. "Look... I'd like to offer to help, if I could."

"But the last time that came up, it was actually a cover to get at my stuff." Phil snorted again without turning around. "Man, I think I _heard_ that wince. Come on down, Mack. Hard times are over for a while. Even you and Fitz kissed and mostly made up."

"I friggin' hope it all stays that way for a bit." Mack put his mug on an unused counter when he got to the bottom of the staircase. "You want me to get that bolt loose for you, first?"

"Yeah, would you?" Phil gestured at it with his sling. "I was gonna try to use my other arm for some leverage on another yank, but I had like a full-body, full-sensation vision of slipping and digging the bolt head into the stump."

"...Yeah, how about you not do that, sir." He picked up the disregarded wrench and studied where Coulson indicated. Looked like a pump line of some sort, not far from whatever Lola was using for her power core. Half the old Stark stuff was still beyond him. Archaic and revolutionary both. _Then_ there were the newer upgrades. The Director was moving stuff around, it looked like. Making some new space under the hood. Mack shrugged gamely and got to work on the tight bolt. "You gotta let that end heal before tech can really get with you on options." He paused in mid-wrench. "Should I-"

"Don't even think about apologizing again, Agent Mackenzie. You saved my life." Phil slumped his hip against Lola's door, ditching the official tone. "I don't have any other idea what anybody coulda done in that situation. You did the best you could."

"Best isn't always in line with hopes. But we lost enough people to that crystal crap. Didn't want to lose the Director, too." Mack snorted. "Not in his first year on that job, anyway. Bad precedent. Gut instinct said I had to try, even if it wasn't an optimal solution."

There wasn't an answering noise from behind him. Mack furrowed his brow as he got the wrench into position, wondering if he'd said something wrong.

"Yeah, well." The voice was oddly quiet. "You can't fix everything."

Mack paused, then wrenched the bolt loose with a single smooth motion. He turned, bouncing the bolt in his palm as he regarded Coulson. "But you always give it your best shot, sir. It's what we do, when we're doing it right. Where's that coming from tonight?"

Phil shook his head. "Bad dreams. Ironic echoes. Lots of nonsense jangling together." He sighed. "I'm tired of having trouble sleeping. Last year, well. We all know where that led. Now it's just this." He jiggled the sling, then stopped himself with a grimace. "Which is still not your fault, and not where I'm going with that."

"I got ya." Mack set the wrench down where he found it, making sure he didn't trip on a still-boxed component on the floor. It was covered with a couple of oil-stained towels. "That what you're planning on installing?"

"If I get the nerve."

"If you get the ne-" Mack stopped himself with a chuckle. "What, you gonna go full Bond and install a top of the line miniaturized weapons system or something?"

"Funny enough, _never_ touch the cigarette lighter. Because it's not there to fire up the passengers." Phil laughed to show he was probably kidding, reaching down to pat the towels. "Nah, it's... something else. Come on, help me re-route the transmission line. That's the main project I had in mind tonight. Everything else is just detailing."

. . .

The space under Lola's hood was now about three square inches bigger. Phil's pleased expression told Mack that the two hour's worth of reorganization in the guts of the car meant a lot of progress on whatever he was up to. Soft cello music continued to play as they worked, sweet low notes filling the engineering bay and chasing out any gloomy silences. Sometimes Coulson paused what he was doing to listen more carefully to a given portion of the piece.

"What's been playing, anyway?" Mack looked over when the last notes of the music faded away. "It's nice."

Phil looked startled by the question. "Ah. That one's the Tischenko Cello Concerto. Two parts, first written in '63. Year before I was born." Something twitched in his jaw. "Performed by the Portland Symphony Orchestra, recorded last summer."

"Portland? Not one of the big shots like London?" Mack chuckled, missing the importance of that. "Like it matters. Damn pretty."

"Yeah," said Phil. "It is." He cleared his throat, ignoring the considering look Mack gave him. "I like to think while the music plays. Hands do one thing, brain does another, somewhere in there things get done. It works."

"I got a guy plays Rammstein while he rips open jet guts on inspection. Says it keeps his mind from eating itself." Mack reached down for a smaller screwdriver, keeping his eye on the connection he was working on. "Maybe that works for him, but man, the acoustics in here drive me up a wall with that. This is much better." A little tightening and... "And that's the transmission done. We wiggle the manifold, you get another few inches of space if you need 'em. Shouldn't have to touch the hover drive."

"Still considering that. I got a lot of lines to run through the whole body yet."

Mack straightened up to lean gently against the front bumper, crossing his arms against his chest. "Come on. Gimme a hint."

"Later." Phil shook a can of WD-40 at him before setting it down. "I'll get us some more coffee going in a moment. Can I ask you a question first, though? Something I've been chewing over."

"Yeah, sure."

"How do _you_ deal with regrets?" Phil gestured at the surrounding bay as Mack got a pinched expression. "I don't mean the really big stuff like this. I don't mean with Gonzales. I'm already past that. I mean like the little things in life. Missed moments. Decisions you can't go back to once you've seen the mistake."

Mack stopped himself from leaning more heavily on Lola to consider that, moving instead over to one of the bolted workbenches while he chewed on that. "Frankly, sir. If it's important enough to regret, I don't think it's ever little. Even the small stuff grows in you, you know? So that answer's the same for all of it for me. You just keep going, picking up the pieces as you walk. Regrets? We got a few. You scab over."

Phil sighed.

"Sorry, man. I'm not the ancient and wise philosopher type. The closest we got to _that_ is upstairs laughing like a serial killer at nineties TV."

That got a snicker out of Coulson. "He said it to me once, you know. When he was in a hole and we caught him in it. Before your time. ' _You can't fix everything_.'"

"Yeah, I bet. What'd you tell him in response?" He watched Coulson fuss with the automated pot. "I got fifteen bucks says it was pretty much what I said to you. And what you always tell the team. That we can't give up, that we're meant to try. It's kind of your theme, you know. Makes it kind of a throw to hear you waver on it, but that's being human in the crappy part of the night. We waver, then we come back."

The back of Coulson's head bobbed in a slow nod. "Good bet." His hand came down to prop himself against the counter, still not turning to look at him. "Sometimes I think we're not a finished species. You know? We're out there, looking for the missing pieces of ourselves. Finding them in other people, or the things we accomplish. Or fail at, even. Sometimes we even find a piece... and then let go of it. Because maybe we need those broken places in ourselves. We're not always meant to be whole." His hip slumped against the edge of the tabletop, giving Mack his profile. He looked like he was elsewhere as he talked. "I mean, it's true. We gotta try. We're not usually wired to just give up. But there's something to be gained even when things don't work out, right?"

"So goes the line. I had a relative super into that, you know. God's plan; even the hardships are meant to strengthen us." Mack shrugged. "I don't know that I buy all of it, personally. And I kinda don't really want to take religion into something that's universal. That's just a perspective thing to me. A set of lenses."

"Through a glass darkly."

Mack picked up his empty mug and waved it at him. "Exactly. All that. I happen to like the occasional straight answer."

A smile filtered across Phil's face. "I should call over to Strange's place tomorrow and see if his guest'll drop the secrets of life and death over the phone. Do you realize we live in a world where that's a thing I could do? Just jingle the good lady Death on a cellphone?" The smile turned into an honest chuckle. "She'll hang up on me, but I could do that."

"Then again, some stuff should stay a little cloudy." Mack rolled his eyes as the sound of the percolator grew louder. "I'm still catching up to the existence of Inhumans being a thing. The mystic side action is _way_ out of my league."

"What's your stance about galactic entanglements?" Phil gestured to the box on the floor. "You want a straight answer, I'll give it to you. You answered my question."

Mack wiggled his coffee mug. "Not real well. Yeah, man. What is it?"

Phil leaned down and took the wrappings off. Underneath, the box was featureless and matte black, marked with symbols Mack couldn't recognize. Taped to the top was a set of scribbled instructions and detailed hand-drawn graphical breakdowns of a car engine. "So, it happens that I kinda know a guy who's a magnet for amazing bad ideas-"

Mack interrupted him with a sharp laugh. "Are we talking about Loki again or someone else?"

The dirty towels wiggled between Phil's fingers. "A guy I met through Loki, who is actually kinda worse for this sort of thing. Terrible influence, specializes in incredibly destructive hobbies, is absolutely not a raccoon despite the fact that if you put him in a lineup with the team that wrecks the neighborhood dumpster, you'd be confused as hell." He snapped the fabric towards the box, enjoying Mack's expression as he absorbed the description of Rocket. "This is the culmination of one of those really bad ideas he gets."

"How bad an idea?"

"You ever wanna see a tricked-out Chevy Coupe bust the Earth's orbit and go full magic carpet ride?" Phil grinned at the dead silence that answered him. "She already theoretically could if you don't mind a one-way trip. I do mind. Box is the environmental control kit I need to fix that; gonna handle life support and radiation management both. To the _moon_ , baby. I'm gonna do donuts above the Sea of Tranquility."

Mack sat down slowly on a filthy bench, torn between horror and awe and giving it up mostly for awe. "You're not kidding."

"I'm not kidding. Maybe I can't fix everything in life, Mack. Maybe I'm gonna be stuck with some of the things I chose to do. But given that I can still make choices with what I got left, I suppose once in a while I'm gonna go for what gives up some awesome results. That's as much my thing as making sure we all have those choices." Phil gently tapped Lola with his knuckles, still grinning. "I'm gonna hit my midlife crisis in _style_."

Mack looked from the car to the Director, then back again. His expression was still frozen in shock. "Was Loki showing up here the worst thing to happen to this place or the best?"

Phil picked up the black box and rested it gently on the workspace. That was a job for another night; lots of systems still to move and rewire. Lots of work to come. Well, Mack said he was on nights for the week. Maybe he'd keep asking the big man for help. As much as Lola was _his_ baby – as much as she'd been his dad's, well. He had a family he could still share that with, one he'd chosen for himself. Phil chuckled, the back of his mind finally letting the nightmare go. At least for now. "What's the difference? He's here. So're we. So we keep moving forward. Just like you said."

"Right on through the sky, huh?"

"And straight through the black into the better times." Phil picked up a wrench, carefully flipping it in his one good hand. "We should both take a break. But first, can you help me finish up this round, make sure the core's jimmied back into place?"

Mack reached out an open hand for the wrench. "Teamwork, sir. Covers for the parts we can't always do ourselves." He gestured at the Director with the tool after it changed hands, grinning. "I'll get you to tell me more about that Tischenko while we do. I should know better, but I still feel like classical music stopped after the Stravinsky guy."

"Nothing stops, Mack. It all just changes." Phil reached up to make sure Lola's cherry-red hood was secure. The outside of her was forever steadfast and familiar. The inside? Evolution writ large. Change as a positive and not something to fear.

Sometimes he had a sneaking suspicion that there was more going on around him than that. SHIELD was once an organization meant only to stand guard over the long, weird night. Keep the things in the dark from biting. Now? SHIELD could change, too. Be more than what it once was. The evidence of that was all around him. He quietly decided that was a pretty good thing, whatever Gonzales had feared.

As Mack hunkered over the open hood, Phil tried to flex his other, lost hand. In the back of his mind he still felt it, all the fingers bending to catch the cool drifting breeze from the air circulation. Just a ghost after all, but one of his and not something to ever be afraid of.

Not really a reminder of something lost. It was something he hadn't found yet. Until then, he'd just keep going. It was going to be all right.

 _~Fin_

 _Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis_

" _Endure, and survive for better times." ~ Virgil, The Aeneid_

. . .

 _7/20/15 MDS. All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want._


End file.
